Without right to life, no one has chance at Obama's 'fair shot'

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Barack Obama rightly deplored an economic situation where “a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by.” He called instead for an America “where everybody gets a fair shot.”

“It’s time,” the president said, “to apply the same rules from top to bottom.”

We couldn’t agree more.

But just two days before, on the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion, President Obama praised that ruling and said, “I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.”

How does legalized abortion give a “fair shot” to children still in the womb? How does abortion “apply the same rules” to all Americans, born and preborn?

Clearly, it doesn’t. Abortion is discrimination based on age. It’s a “choice” that violates the most basic right of all: the right to life.

If the president had stepped out on Constitution Avenue on Monday, he would have seen nearly a half-million marchers, mostly young, participating in the 39th Annual March for Life, calling on our government to make American a place where everyone gets the “fair shot” of being born.

While most major media continued to ignore this massive citizen protest, television’s normally liberal MSNBC characterized it as the nation’s “largest peaceful human rights demonstration” on behalf of the unborn.

Our work on behalf of children doesn’t stop with securing the right to be born, of course. As President Obama correctly points out, we need to rectify the growing gap between the haves and have-nots. The abortion rate is significantly higher among the poor. We must work for economic justice and opportunity for all.

But without the right to life, the right to a “fair shot” at economic well-being is meaningless.